Volume Setup And Storage Layout; Configure Access To Storage - Intel S5520HC Installation Manual

VMware vSphere* 4.1 Installation Guide for ESX/ESXi* 4.1
setting up firewall ports and installing ESX* Server:
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_esx_vc_installation_guide.pdf

Volume Setup and Storage Layout

Configure Access to Storage

An ESX Server* virtual machine uses a virtual hard disk to store its operating system, program files, and
other data associated with its activities. A virtual disk is a large physical file, or a set of files, that can be
copied, moved, archived, and backed up as easily as any other file. To store virtual disk files and be able to
manipulate the files, ESX Server 4.1 requires specialized dedicated storage space. ESX Server uses storage
space on a variety of physical storage devices, including the host's internal and external storage devices, or
networked storage devices. The storage device is a physical disk or disk array dedicated to the specific tasks
of storing and protecting data. ESX Server can discover storage devices it has access to, and use them as
datastores. The datastore is a special logical container, analogous to a file system on a logical volume, where
ESX Server places virtual disk files and other files that encapsulate essential components of a virtual
machine. Deployed on different devices, the datastores hide specifics of each storage product and provide a
uniform model for storing virtual machine files. Using the VI Client, datastores can be set-up in advance on
any storage device that the ESX Server 4.1 discovers.
It is recommended to create separate virtual disks and datastores for each virtual machine. This improves
performance by storing multiple VMs on different LUNs or virtual disks as opposed to a single LUN and
avoids SCSI reservation issues. After creating the datastores, they can be used to store virtual machine files.
The next sections provide steps to install ESX* Server and to setup ESX Server hosts to store and run virtual
machines from internal and external storage. The recipe will show how to setup hardware RAID to install
the ESX server and how to connect to an external iSCSI storage solution.
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